Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bamidbar
- Korach
The Torah study is dedicatedin the memory of
Yaakov Ben Behora
But Israel is the land of milk and honey because its agricultural bounty is not merely material. The Rambam (Guide to the Perplexed III, 43) calls Israel "the best place in the land and the fattest" [as in "fat of the land"]. This description appears earlier in the Sifrei (Devarim 37): "A land of milk and honey - its fruit are as fat as milk and as sweet as honey... fat is the Land of Israel... The Land of Israel is higher than all other lands and is therefore superior to them." The "elevation" to which the Sifrei refers is the land’s proximity to God’s blessing.
The Avnei Nezer (Neot Deshe, parashat Shelach) writes that the manna that descended daily from heaven to sustain Israel in the desert never ceased altogether; to this very day, its nature permeates the produce of the Land of Israel. Rav Kook teaches that unlike the food of other lands, "the food of the Land of Israel is holy" (Orot Hakodesh III, p. 295).
May all Israel merit to dwell in the Land, to "eat of its fruit and be sated with its bounty."
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